The Pack
by greenleaf-in-bloom
Summary: Greenwood Sorcery Academy, founded by Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, accepts any magical students. Now run by werewolf Andromeda Lupin and her adoptive brother Aramos, part-time Aurors, becomes the center of the new war.


The Pack of Greenwood  
  
Prologue  
  
She Apparated, quite aware as she did so that this was probably not the most decent hour and that she shouldn't be going without Aramos. Landing with a pop, she winced - long distances and Apparition were not things that mixed. But she didn't really have much of a choice.  
  
The cubicle's walls were papered with pictures of her family, her students, and the past - with an occasional picture of a wolf on Aramos' side that made her wince. God knew she saw enough of those things without his fascination.  
  
But then, perhaps it was only natural for him to be so obsessed with them. After all, being born and Anamagi was a rare thing, and whatever animal you could change into had to be identical to your character and fitting for your destiny.  
  
She hated textbooks.  
  
But the book was right - a wolf was certainly a fitting animal for Aramos. Not so much for her - but then, your personality didn't have to reflect it to be a werewolf.  
  
She smiled at the picture of her grinning parents, lifting an enormous book from the top of the filing cabinet and flipping it open to the index.  
  
Bogies, Curse of the. Perfect!  
  
Perhaps she didn't hate textbooks so much after all. She flipped through it, grinning more widely, and thinking that this was more of the thing one of her students might do - Winken, perhaps, or another of Veritain's bullies. But then, Aramos certainly deserved it.  
  
The picture of her father rolled his eyes, obviously disapproving but amused. She rolled her eyes back at him.  
  
Page seven hundred and fifty-four. There!  
  
She skimmed it once, then twice, and her gold-flecked green eyes widened in fury.  
  
They didn't include the incantation! The incompetence of the older generation!  
  
She looked at the end, the page that told about the author. He was two years younger than her.  
  
Damn it!  
  
She flung herself indignantly into her chair. A deep, amused voice came from behind her and made her start.  
  
"Did he forget to do his rounds IagainI?"  
  
She looked around and laughed. Kingsley Shacklebolt was leaning casually against the doorframe of her cubicle, his eyebrows raised.  
  
"Yes," she said, grinning despite herself. Kingsley was an older Auror, a senior member, but still slightly lower-ranking than her mother. He had been an Auror since before the Department Head was born.  
  
He sighed as if in resignation. "What's the incantation you need?" he asked, as if he'd had to do the same thing time after time - which, in fact, he had.  
  
"Curse of the Bogies," she responded instantly. "I IknowI Papa taught me it, Kingsley, I just can't remember it."  
  
"Too childish," Kingsley said dismissively. "I'd try the old Muggle trick."  
  
"Eh?" She was interested despite herself. There weren't many Muggle-born children at Greenwood, and she'd grown up there.  
  
"Wait until tomorrow night," Kingsley said, a grin unfolding slowly across his dark-skinned face, "and short-sheet his bed."  
  
"I can't wait to hear what Mother would say about IthatI," Andromeda responded, rolling her eyes in exasperation and amusement.  
  
"You think Aramos would actually tell her you'd outwitted him?"  
  
"Not a chance in Hell," a third voice said. Andry actually jumped despite herself, and then sighed in relief when James and Sirius Potter emerged together in the doorway, James punching Kingsley on the shoulder as a means of greeting him and Sirius rolling his eyes and lifting his chin in acknowledgement. She couldn't tell which of them had said it, but she was fairly sure it had been James. Sirius wasn't the kind for language.  
  
"You two youngsters better scurry on home before Nymphadora catches you here," Kingsley told them with a grin. "You know you aren't allowed here past hours."  
  
"Not for another seven months, anyway," James said brightly while Sirius rolled his eyes. "Before you know it, we'll be allowed here day and night like you lucky dogs - no pun intended, dear brother. And no offense meant, of course, Andromeda."  
  
"Andry," she corrected automatically. James smiled at her and nodded as if he'd remember it, although he'd been told a great many times already.  
  
"But until you IdoI pass your third year of training, you aren't allowed here, so scat. I can't imagine what Nymphadora will do if she finds out you two -"  
  
"Is Mother here?" Andry interrupted, surprised.  
  
"She's due here any moment. I suggest you get going, too, she seems to still think you oughtn't be allowed here at this time." Kingsley was still grinning.  
  
"It's only midnight!" she protested. "And I'm too old for her to set me a bedtime still, I'd like to see her try to kick me out!"  
  
"So would I," Kingsley half-sniggered, folding his arms across his chest.  
  
"Point taken," Andry said quickly. "All right. James, Sirius, you get out first, I've still got to find something out here."  
  
James groaned and the two of them disapparated with a single pop.  
  
"I can never understand how they do that," Kingsley said, shaking his head. "How's Elvis?"  
  
"Oh, he's fine. They had a practice match the other day, he put together a team and flattened a bunch of the older children. Quite a boy, he is."  
  
"Excellent," the man said, nodding. "Amazing. I've never understood how he can do it."  
  
"He hears the Bludgers. Not exactly quiet things, them. But it's still unbelievable."  
  
"But to know where they are - to hit them - and to aim them properly, without being able to see them -"  
  
"I can't imagine how good he would be if he weren't blind."  
  
Kingsley looked suddenly startled. "She's here," he hissed, and Andry Disapparated with a pop.  
  
She arrived instantly back at Greenwood just outside the gates, and the Whomping Willows lashed furiously at her. "It's all right, it's just me," she muttered to them angrily, and she turned to the black gate itself. "Everything all right?"  
  
"Someone broke out through the perimeter near the river," said a rusty sort of voice from the knocker.  
  
"Jarvin again?"  
  
"Could be. I don't know, I only listen to the Willows. Whoever it was, they moved quick."  
  
"All right, I'll be back in a few minutes. Be ready, okay?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am," the voice answered politely.  
  
Resisting the urge to curse as she moved along the perimeter of Whomping Willows, Andry sped up. It would be Jarvin, she knew it. The stars were out tonight, and Veritain's lot had been getting nastier and bolder.  
  
Sure enough, as she neared the bend in the river she could barely make out the shape of a chestnut centaur kneeling by the water, head thrown back, staring up at the constellations and the almost-full moon. As she approached, Jarvin glanced over at her and smiled a bit sadly. "Hello," the girl said. "Mars is bright tonight."  
  
Andry returned the sad smile. "Yes," she agreed, following the centaur's upward gaze. "Jarvin, you know you can't keep doing this."  
  
"Coming out?" Jarvin said softly. "I apologize. I can't stay in." She shrugged. "If you wish to give me detention, I know I am out-of-bounds."  
  
"No, that won't be necessary," Andry replied. "But I do have to ask you, even if you are going to leave the inside school, not to go outside the perimeter. Here, it isn't safe."  
  
"I know," the young centaur said with a nod. "I come for the river. For the stars."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You wish me to return to the school now."  
  
"Please."  
  
"Very well."  
  
Jarvin stood.  
  
"Has Veritain been giving you trouble again?" Andry asked her.  
  
"Veritain is always ridiculing me."  
  
"If you don't mind my asking, Jarvin, why does he?"  
  
"Because I trust you." The answer was abrupt and although Andry hadn't expected it to be, she knew it was true. Jarvin was one of the few centaurs at Greenwood Sorcery Academy that trusted her Heads. Despite the fact that Greenwood had taken them in when no one else would, had accepted their gifts or curses, however they chose to see them, or their races or disabilities, and taught them as all other magical children were taught, many of the students, especially the centaurs, were bitter and mistrustful towards the four Heads.  
  
Andry always thought of it as being a school with four Heads, but perhaps it really was only her and Aramos now. After all, her parents, the school's founders, would visit occasionally - her father on every full moon and generally more regularly than that - but they did not run the school, nor did they teach there any longer. Her mother and father, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, were both werewolves, and Mother was also a Metamorphmagi. Andry herself was a werewolf and Aramos an Animagi born. But still the students thought they could never understand.  
  
It was difficult, sometimes, to accept that perhaps they would always think that.  
  
Jarvin was silent as the two of them walked back, and Andry led the girl all the way to the centaur girls' dormitory, still having to do Aramos' rounds before sleeping. All of the centaur girls were in the dormitory, which was enchanted to be like a forest within a room to make them more comfortable, but she had already done her rounds and had known that. Jarvin had been there when she had checked before, and must have snuck out since. With a fleeting half-smile at the girl, Andry closed the door and reluctantly went to check the centaur boys' room - IsomeoneI had to make sure they were all there.  
  
And they were - even, to her surprise, Veritain, but then he generally sent others to do his dirty work. She moved next to the vampires' room, and all of the boys were there as well. There were more vampires than there were centaurs, since most of the centaurs didn't come until they were twelve and would simply start in with the twelve-year-olds, where as vampires, like the rest, started Greenwood when they were eight. Much of the earlier years learned about their gifts and curses, and how to control them and live with them - the werewolves learned how to brew the Wolfsbane in a pinch, although most of them wouldn't be able to until they were at least in their last year, at age eighteen.  
  
Next she moved to the werewolves' room. These were probably the students she knew best, as she spent every full moon with them and had taught each of them on a personal scale, one-on-one, more than she had the other students. They were all there - Endrelle Valdur was reading, veela didn't seem to need as much sleep as normal people. He looked up at her and smiled vaguely, his jade-green eyes glinting in the light from his wand. "Thomas went out earlier," he informed her calmly. "I don't know where, but he turned right, and he'd snuck out to the kitchens already, so I'd bet my breeches he went to the house-elves room." A bet, Andry guessed, that most of Greenwood's female population, would be willing to take the boy up on just in the hopes he might lose. Strangely enough, Endrelle actually IhadI breeches. Despite being veela, not Muggle-born, and despite it being against all school dress codes, Endrelle wore a baggy white T-shirt and blue jeans around the school wherever he went. The only thing he wore that was within regulations was the green ribbon he used to tie back his long, untidy silver hair - fitting, as the school colors were silver and emerald. Had the emerald been several shades lighter, his eyes might have filled it. "I would hurry down there."  
  
She thanked him and moved on quickly to the other lycanthropes' room. There were only two of them - weretigers, both of them, and the only two in the school. Both of them were there, and asleep.  
  
The Metamorphmagi were next. Danath Creevey had finally changed back into his original form - he had spent a good deal of the day looking like her mother. That boy frightened her. He was only eleven - but quite a convincing actor.  
  
Then the Anamagi - some of them slept in their animal forms, so she looked over the beds carefully - boy, chipmunk, boy, boy, gazelle, turtle, boy. . .  
  
The ghosts were next, and since none of them slept they were gathered together, some talking, some doing homework on ghostly paper, some lying still with their eyes wide open. Eli Casper informed her politely and without emotion that little more than an hour ago, there had been quite a clatter from down the hall and a few minutes later they had heard footsteps. Then, he said, it had been about fifteen minutes before Thomas Deidrick came walking back down the hall toward the werewolves' room. It had sounded, Eli added, as if it had come from the house-elves rooms. The young ghost seemed oblivious to the fact that one or two of the ghosts who had been glaring at Andry and muttering were now glaring at him instead.  
  
The room for other children was next, with perhaps twenty boys inside - Kingsley Shacklebolt's remarkable blind thirteen-year-old grandson included. They were all there and all asleep, so she hurried on to the next room.  
  
The house-elves' rooms were chaos.  
  
Some of them were hung from the ceiling, asleep or Stunned; others lay with the Full Body-Bind on them, yet others floated through the air, slowly, but undoubtedly they would run into a wall eventually.  
  
It took her almost half and hour to sort it all out, and she decided to double-check the females' rooms. Sure enough, they were in the same predicament - all of them that weren't followers of Veritain hung from the ceiling, lay stiff as boards in their beds or on the floor, or floated through the air. . .  
  
She managed to deal with them in about twenty minutes before realizing that she hadn't made sure that all of the boys were even there, and so she sighed and went back.  
  
Redwrench, Elvis Shacklebolt's best friend, was not in his bed, or floating through the air, or hanging from the ceiling, or lying on the floor. He wasn't in the room. With another sigh, Andry asked them one by one, but no one seemed to know what could have happened to him. She hurried out of the room and down the halls, looking before finally running into - or rather, through - Eli. He still looked calm, but his voice was pained as he told her where the small elf was.  
  
In the Grand Hall, Andry stared up at the chandelier and the house-elf tied to it, and sighed. As she motioned her hands down and felt herself start to move upward, she realized just how far up it was, and just how little sleep she was going to be able to get tonight.  
  
IDamn it, Aramos, why did you chooseI tonight Ito skip your rounds?I 


End file.
